Tattle: Maria's pals leaked Arnold scandal, TMZ says

By Howard Gensler

IT'S TAKEN a week but TMZ.com has finally figured out how the Los Angeles Times beat them on the Arnold Schwarzenegger babydaddy story - Maria Shriver's peeps tipped them off.

TMZ says members of Team Maria sang like canaries because she was so angry at her lunkhead husband.

Unnamed Maria friends said that when she found out that Arnold had done the Millie Diddle with longtime housekeeper Mildred Patty Baena and was the father of the maid's son, she went "hysterical" and wanted to call a news conference.

Maria's minions convinced her that leaking the details would be a better plan. The story now goes that Maria found out about the baby in late April or early May. Arnold sources say they knew she leaked the story.

* A Maria friend told

RadarOnline.com that she will be filing for divorce and has reportedly hired high-profile celeb divorce lawyer Laura Wasser to terminate "The Terminator."

A former employee said: "Maria didn't suspect for one second that Patty was messing about with her husband. But there were others who she wasn't quite so sure about."

Those dominoes will all begin to fall shortly.

One man's smut . . .

Those non-stop whiners at the Parents Television Council are now upset that ABC's "Billboard Music Awards," telecast live from Las Vegas, opened with the tawdry song "S&M" featuring Rihanna and Britney Spears.

According to PTC President Tim Winter, "What happened in Vegas should have stayed in Vegas, as the saying goes. It certainly has no place at 8:00 pm on the publicly-owned broadcast airwaves."

Until Neil Diamond sang "Sweet Caroline" near 11 p.m., we're not sure any of the show fit the PTC's definition of acceptable television, but that's why families worried about exposing their children to a succesion of stripper pole gyrations and bleeped out lyrics, can Netflix episodes of "The Donna Reed Show."

* Meanwhile in New York (a/k/a Sodom), the profane musical "The Book of Mormon" (from the people who brought you "South Park" and "Avenue Q," so take that, Irving Berlin) snagged five Drama Desk Awards, making it the favorite at next month's Tony Awards.

"Mormon" has already been declared the best musical by the Outer Critics Circle and the New York Drama Critics' Circle.

The musical, by Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone, follows the travails of two Mormon missionaries sent to Uganda to try to convert locals. Casey Nicholaw and Parker directed.

Additionally, an award for outstanding acting in a play went to Bobby Cannavale in "The Motherf-- With the Hat," whose title can't even be said on television.

Tattbits

* The Dana Delany does "Quincy" medical drama "Body of Proof" will stop shooting in Rhode Island and move its production to Los Angeles.

The show is set in Philadelphia, which looks nothing like either city.

The Los Angeles Times reported that "Body" is moving because of questions surrounding the continuation of Rhode Island's film tax-credit program.

The California Film Commission, meanwhile, coughed up a $7 million tax credit for "Body," which will now employ about 200 people in California instead of Rhode Island.

* The costume Kirstie Alley wore for her "Dancing with the Stars" debut reportedly had to be taken in 38 inches for her to wear on last night's finale.

Whoa! She might have won "The Biggest Loser."

* As a fan of old-fashioned

pinball, we are sad to report that the National Pinball Museum in Washington is being forced to close after just five months.

David Silverman, who put up $300,000 of his own money to help open the museum, told the Washington Post he received a letter informing him he'll have to leave his third-floor space in Georgetown in mid-July.

The museum features 200 pinball machines. Some of the machines are available for visitors to play, and the museum also features displays detailing the art and history of the game.

Silverman says he remains committed to keeping the museum alive.

And winning an extra ball.

* In a classic case

of the pot calling the kettle black, the government of Iran has protested to the Cannes Film Festival over its decision to ban director Lars von Trier for saying he sympathized with Adolf Hitler.

Iran's semiofficial FARS (pronounced "farce") news agency said yesterday that deputy culture minister Javad Shamaqdari had written to festival president Gilles Jacob saying Cannes had smirched its history and rendered its claims to defend free speech "a meaningless slogan."

The Iranians can speak knowledgeably about free speech because this year's Cannes fest included films by two Iranian directors, Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof.

Unfortunately, Iran has sentenced Panahi and Rasoulof to six years in jail and banned them from making movies for 20 years for "making propaganda" against the ruling system.

Rasoulof's "Be Omid e Didar" ("Goodbye") won a prize at Cannes, but he was not allowed to travel to France to accept it.

Maybe Iran could have asked von Trier to pick it up for him.

* You can take the boys

away from the "Jersey Shore" but you can't take "Jersey Shore" out of the boys.

TMZ.com reports that Ronnie and The Situation got into a fistfight with each other Monday night in Italy and Ronnie beat the abs right off of the Sitch.